[XaraXtreme-dev] Translation: Lauchpad's Rosetta vs. SVN

[Tobias Burnus <burnus@xxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I'd like to make the following suggestion regarding the translation of
the PO files:

Instead of using Lauchpad's Rosetta, the .po files are created directly
in the SVN of Xara.

Advantages:

+ Directly available, no need to download them from Rosetta or uploading
a new .pot file. The inclusion of the .po files could easily be part of
the autobuilds and the update of the .po files with a new .pot file
could also be automized (the .pot file on the website is already updated
daily).

+ Much easier handling for the translators (at least in my opinion).
Currently one has two choices: One can use the webinterface or one can
download the file and edit offline.
The webinterface of Lauchpad is very hard to use: * No search feature,
no translation dictionary, etc.
Downloading is also a huge effort:
- going to the right webpage
- requesting the .po file
- waiting a minute for the email
- clicking on the link in the email
- downloading file.
Now one can edit the file with a PO editor of choice (e.g. vi, emacs,
poEdit etc.)
Now uploading:
- going to the webpage
- uploading file
- checking status page (Failed, Needs Review etc.) on a rather clumsy
webpage
- After several hours (today > 10h+, still counting) it is finally imported

If you use SVN you get basically the same:
- Download file: svn update
Now one can edit the file with a PO editor of choice (e.g. vi, emacs,
poEdit etc.)
- Upload file:
   svn update (just to make sure)
   svn commit

So, which niceties has Rosetta:
- Usermanagement:
  Well, as the number of users is limited (one needs to have a contract
signed), one could easily do the management manually. Via SVN hooks one
can restrict the access to certain files
(See commit-access-control.pl or svnperms.py, available from
http://subversion.tigris.org/tools_contrib.html)

- Conformance checking:
  Well, adding a hook script, which runs  msgfmt --check can easily be
added to SVN

- Translation statistics:
  Well, there is no problem to create a similar page as
  https://launchpad.net/products/xaralx/+translations
  It is basically based on msgfmt --statistics

- Easy access for non-command-line users
  I think there are nice graphical SVN clients, for Linux and for
Windows (and probably also for MacOS X).
  I can also volunteer to write up a manual.
  Using such a client cannot be more diffcult than going through all the
steps in Rosetta!

- Anything else?

 * * *

I'm really fed up with Lauchpad. I didn't like it at first sight and I
don't get comfortable on the second and third sight. All I'm hearing
from other users (granted, I know not so many) is that they are not that
happy.

Tobias

PS: Yes, I'm also volunteering to write (hook) scripts (howto/example
for usermanagement; msgfmt check, translation statistics webpage).